The Simpsons: Tapped Out (TSTO) is a free game for iOS and Android, developed and published by Electronic Arts, first released on February 17, 2012 on iOS, then released on Android on January 23, 2013 and on Kindle Fire on June 24, 2013. The game consists of the player helping Homer and other characters to rebuild Springfield and features the cast of the show.

Description

D'OH! Homer accidently caused a meltdown that wiped out Springfield. Now, it's up to you to rebuild it. From the writers of The Simpsons, tap into a city building game that lets you create your own living, breathing Springfield...for FREE. Recreate Springfield just like you want it, as you help Homer find Marge, Bart and the rest of his family and friends. Complete comic quests like making Apu work ridiculously long shifts at Kwik-E-Mart, growing and harvesting Tomacco on Cletus's Farm, partying down with Duffman at Duff Brewery, and more. Finish jobs and tasks to earn currency and...mmm, donuts. You can even get social and visit your friends' versions of Springfield. Make mischief and play pranks on their towns to collect cash. But remember, they can do the same to you. We told you that this game is life-ruiningly fun.

THIS GAME IS LIFE-RUININGLY FUN! Homer accidently caused a meltdown that wiped out Springfield. D'OH! Now, it's up to you to rebuild it! From the writers of The Simpsons, tap into a city building game that lets you create your own living, breathing Springfield... for FREE.

Basic Gameplay

An example of a town.

How to play

To play the game, players needs to tap on things. Tapping on characters will open their task menu, from where players can select different tasks for the character to do. After completing a task, the player is rewarded with cash () and XP (). Cash allows the player to buy more buildings, land and decorations while XP allows the player to level up and unlock more content. Placing buildings, will reward the player with new actions for their characters to perform and some will unlock a new character. Buildings will reward you with Cash and XP when you tap them every certain time. The Player is also able to decorate their Springfield as they want with the numerous buildings and decorations purchasable from the build menu, and is free to move them around. Placing enough types of decorations and buildings will increase your Conform-o-meter up to a maximum of 5 starts, giving a small bonus to all your characters and buildings tasks.

Donuts () are the game's premium currency; they are used to buy a variety of special characters, buildings and decorations, as well as speeding up tasks and building times. Premium characters and buildings give doble the income than freemium characters and buildings, and premium decorations increase your cash and XP bonus.

Collecting all characters from a character group will result in a reward. Players can see the characters they've unlocked by tapping on the Homer Statuette on the build menu.

Characters with a speech bubble have a quest. Tapping on this character will start the quest, usually showing some dialogue. The player is required to send characters to different jobs, build a certain building or place some decorations for completing the quest, and will be rewarded with Cash and XP once completing it. Tapping on the Task book on the left side of the screen will allow you to see all the active quests you need to complete. Completing quests will also unlock more content.

The player can add friends via Facebook Connect, Gmail, their device's contact list and EA's Origin. After the player has added some friends, they can visit their versions of Springfield to complete three tasks each day, which results in more rewards, as well as Friend Points (), which will unlock unique prizes. The maximum number of friends you can add in Tapped Out is 100. The game also includes a generic town named "Other Springfield".

Further Information

The game is compatible on:

Android 2.3.3 or later.

– Android didn't from the start enable players to visit their friends' Springfields.

This game downloads additional content on first launch that can be up to 175MB based on device.

The game regularly updates and require additional downloads when released.

Game saves are not supported across multiple devices (each device will have its own save file), unless you connect to an Origin account then your game will be save on EA's servers and can be accessed later on another device.

History

Connectivity problems

On March 3, 2012, due to connectivity problems, Tapped Out was removed from the App Store.[1] In mid-June 2012, EA took the game offline to fix the server, and to fix the Springfields which experienced problems.[2]

It was announced on August 14, 2012 that The Simpsons: Tapped Out would return to the United States App Store later that week, and it would relaunch worldwide (apart from Germany and Canada) in either September[3] or later in August, with improved gameplay and enhanced graphics.[4] With the relaunch, there will be new content in Tapped Out, Kotaku says it'll be packing new stuff from the latest season of The Simpsons. Other outlets say it'll have some new visuals as well as mechanics.[5] It was re-released two days later, on 16 August. After December 5, 2012, EA upgraded their software to meet the constant demand of new and improved devices, and warned that the game may not work on 1st or 2nd generation iPhones or iPods anymore.[6]

Level 21

Many players of the game were convinced that there was a Level 21, and also convinced that there was a bug when the player reaches 48880 XP because the game did not level up.[7] An update for the game was then released that introduced more characters and buildings, and the Level 21.

Android version

The Android version of the game was released on January 23, 2013 in the Netherlands and Australia; the ninth content update was included with the release.[8] The game was added to the Google Play store in other countries on February 6, 2013. The game was made available on Kindle Fire devices in many countries on June 24, 2013.

Buildings

Quests

Decoration

The Store

A screenshot of the first slide of The Store.

The Store is an in-game store where you can use in-game cash to buy decorations and buildings, as well as the premium in-game currency called "donuts" (the cost of which will be charged to your iTunes or Google Wallet account). The donuts purchased can be used to speed up activities (jobs, quests, building times) and also to buy premium characters, buildings and decorations that can only be acquired with donuts. You can also trade donuts for additional in-game cash. The First Time Packs update introduced some bonus prizes the first time the packages from 60 to 2.400 were bought.

Real-world purchases

Boatload of 2.400 Donuts

Store Full of 900 Donuts

Truckload of 300 Donuts

$99.99£79.9999.99€CHF1003290.0 RUBAUD 109.99KR 949CAD 139.99RUB 5990

$49.99£39.9949.99€CHF481690.0 RUBAUD 51.99KR 489CAD 69.99RUB 2990

$19.99£14.9919.99€CHF20649.0 RUBAUD 20.99KR 189CAD 27.99RUB 1990

Tray of 132 DonutsCrate of 132 Donuts

Stack of 60 Donuts

Dozen Donuts

$9.99£7.999.99€CHF10329.0 RUBAUD 10.49KR 95CAD 13.99RUB 599

$4.99£3.994.99€CHF5169.0 RUBAUD 5.49KR 49CAD 6.99RUB 279

$1.99£1.991.99€CHF266.0 RUBAUD 1.99KR 19CAD 2.79RUB 119

In-game purchases: Grind Packs

Image

Name

Costs

Prize below level 9

Prize above level 9

Level 50 Example

Grind Pack 1

9

1,250

1,250+(level-8)*250

11,750

Grind Pack 2

30

6,250

6,250+(level-8)*1,250

58,750

Grind Pack 3

65

15,000

15,000+(level-8)*3,000

141,000

Grind Pack 4

100

25,000

25,000+(level-8)*5,000

235,000

Grind Pack 5

285

75,000

75,000+(level-8)*15,000

705,000

Grind Pack 6

550

150,000

150,000+(level-8)*30,000

1,410,000

Grind Pack 7

1,000

300,000

300,000+(level-8)*60,000

2,820,000

Grind Pack 8

1,600

500,000

500,000+(level-8)*100,000

4,700,000

Levels

The levels for the game with content go from Level 1 to Level 60. After reaching Level 60 the player can level up to Level 939.

Content updates

155 content updates have been released so far – two in September 2012, one in October 2012, four in November 2012, one in December 2012, two in January 2013, two in February 2013, three in March 2013, three in April 2013, five in May 2013, two in June 2013, three in July 2013, two in August 2013, two in September 2013, two in October 2013, two in November 2013, two in December 2013, three in January 2014, two in February 2014, four in March 2014 three in April 2014, two in May 2014, two in June 2014, three in July 2014, three in August 2014, three in September 2014, two in October 2014, three in November 2014, two in December 2014, three in January 2015, three in February 2015, three in March 2015, five in April 2015, four in May 2015, five in June 2015, three in July 2015, three in August 2015, five in September 2015, five in October 2015, three in November 2015, two in December 2015, two in January 2016, four in February 2016, three in March 2016, two in April 2016, two in May 2016, three in June 2016, one in July 2016, two in August 2016, one in September 2016, one in October 2016, two in November 2016, three in December 2016, five in January 2017, three in March 2017, three in May 2017, three in July 2017, one in August 2017 and one in September 2017.

Dates

Reaction to the game

"We want this to be one of the biggest titles this year," EA SVP of global publishing for social and mobile Bernard Kim told CNET. "We've invested a lot. It's absolutely a top-tier development priority for us. Hardcore Simpsons fans will get a lot out of it."[9]

On February 17, 2012, the free Tapped Out app appeared on the Sweden, Singapore, Norway, Denmark and Finland's App Stores. It was later added to Canada, the United Kingdom and several other countries, with the United States receiving the game last. On March 1, the reaction to the app being released in the United States was so overwhelming, that it created connection problems.[10] On March 3, 2012, three days after the US release, the app was removed from every App Store (with the exception of the Canada app store; the game was removed later), so "to make sure you current players have the best possible experience".[1]

Most connection problems have been fixed since then, but the bugs were the main problem with the downloaders of the game. Tons of bugs were reported on the Tapped Out forum, mostly reported was the "DC while loading friends city bug".

Tapped Out was the top-grossing iOS game for EA under the last quarter 2012 and earning $23 million in sales.[11] Tapped Out had generated over $100 million in life-to-date digital net revenue, by Electronic Arts in October 29, 2013. After August 2012 to October 29, 2013 has it been in the top 20 iPhone grossing games in the United States for all but 12 days since launch.[12]